


There's That Morning Light

by CheckeredCloth



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aliens, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Not Really Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 16:04:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7368247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheckeredCloth/pseuds/CheckeredCloth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the bullets chip away at the already wrecked plaster by Lance's head, he wishes he'd known that the last time he and Keith had sex would be the last time.  Period.</p><p>He would have appreciated it more: he would have languished in the afterglow a little longer, would have traced the curl of Keith's mouth when he rolled his eyes...</p><p>But that's the thing about regret: it bites you in the ass with what you should've done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's That Morning Light

**Author's Note:**

> The paladins are a few years older in this, in their mid-to-late twenties, and have been fighting Zarkon for a while. I like the idea of an older, more experienced Lance with a sniper-rifle.

As the bullets chip away at the already wrecked plaster by Lance's head, he wishes he'd known that the last time he and Keith had sex would be _the last time_. Period.

He would have appreciated it more: he would have languished in the afterglow a little longer, would have traced the curl of Keith's mouth when he rolled his eyes...

But that's the thing about regret: it bites you in the ass with what you should've done.

"Fuck," he mutters as a particularly large piece of insulation explodes above him, raining down fine powder onto an already shitty situation; Lance has been at this for hours, and his sweat-drenched skin has layer upon layer of gray dust uncomfortably caked onto it. He's sure he looks like a ghost, and the group of cowering Xolutans in the corner look no better.

This morning (Or was it yesterday morning? Yeah, yesterday morning) started out so great...

 _Keith stretched out on the big fancy bed they'd been given like a cat -though less_ household _cat and more feral bobcat- his muscles pale and lightly-scarred and deliciously defined, and Lance watched them jump as his fingers danced across the other man's back. He looked uncharacteristically relaxed, for Keith._

_Nice rooms and adequate sleep were usually some of the benefits of diplomatic missions on alien planets, even if said diplomatic mission was turning out to be a shit-storm:_

_"They're children who've stumbled upon ancient Altean technology!" one of the senators had blustered in the conclave after Shiro'd tried to impress upon them the gravity of Zarkon's intergalactic threat. Lance had resented that comment: he was fucking twenty-six, for God's sake. "What do they know of the Galra threat?"_

_"Our ages are irrelevant," Shiro had countered patiently. "But our experiences are undeniable; burying your heads in the sand won't protect you from the Galra." Burying their heads in the sand was exactly what the orange, feathered aliens intended to do, unfortunately._

_But Lance digressed; he didn't want to think about politics when his cock was resting so contentedly in the crack of Keith's ass._

_"What're you doing?" Keith murmured sleepily into his pillow. He fumbled back to grab at Lance's knee where it was straddling Keith's lower body. Lance grinned and thought on it for a moment._

_"Bouncing," he finally settled on, bobbing a bit from his seat on Keith's ass. He liked the way the bed creaked a bit at the motion._

_Keith barked out a laugh. "Get off."_

_"Oh, I plan to." When he was suddenly toppled and pinned on the other side of the bed, Lance was sure that his laughter could be heard from Pidge's room across the hall._

It wasn't the Galra who attacked later that morning, but a rebelling faction of powerful cartels who'd gotten it into their feather-y brains that taking the capitol was the next logical step. In the ensuing chaos of shrapnel and flying ammunition, Shiro tried to take the reigns on the situation, but Lance somehow getting separated from the other paladins with what remained of the planet's governing force was never part of the plan.

Such is Lance's life. He can only pray that the others are still alive and have managed to get back to the lions, somehow.

Lance crouches against the wall next to the decimated window-frame and slaps another cartridge into the alien rifle. He then takes a deep breath before leaning up to position the rifle at the bottom of the window, scoping a cartel-member, dropping him (or her), and then crouching back down as another wave of bullets rains down above his head. He's been at this for hours -so many that the sun has fallen and risen again, though Lance is unsure what constitutes a solar cycle on this planet- and the rhythm is comfortably familiar, almost tedious.

At first it was a bit exhilarating, like shooting fish in a barrel as the cartels funnel down the only bridge to the two-story building he and the council are barricaded in. He thinks he must be in some kind of police station, if the cases of weapons and fortified walls are any indication (either that, or he's in the home of a very paranoid local citizen). So, it's not like Lance is running out of ammo; he's just running out of steam.

Even if they're still somehow obeying his commands, his fingers and left arm have long-since gone numb from bracing the rifle and pulling the trigger. His lips feel cracked and painful, and every time he swipes his tongue over his teeth they taste metallic; he's positive he's dangerously dehydrated. He's thought a few times about arming the remaining senators to the nines and trying to make a push for the other side of the river, but they've been nearly catatonic with fear since Lance led them here, and it's not like the number of enemies is decreasing: what the gangs lack in strategy, they make up for in bodies and persistence.

His ears start ringing, and he realizes it's with the sudden silence. The rebels have stopped firing.

The others poke their heads up from a pile of over-turned furniture in the center of the room, their owlish eyes wide with fear and confusion. There are a few stray citizens who fell into their group during the flight from the palace, who've holed up with them as well during this mess, and one of them of looks the relative age of an eight-year old human child. She peeks her head out of her hiding spot, brown eyes looking to Lance for an explanation. He puts a finger to his lips, and she gets the message and ducks back down.

Quiet doesn't mean it's over. It just means that the gangs are finally adopting a new strategy.

That strategy reveals itself in a sudden terrifying thud across the room that makes them all jump: someone or something is ramming at the barricade they made. Lance is sure he didn't let anyone across the bridge, but they could've crossed by other means; the Xolutans are hydrophobic, but it was only a matter of time before they figured something out.

As the thudding increases in tempo and volume, Lance knows he doesn't have a lot of time for a plan. When he crawls over to the others, keeping his head low in case someone is still waiting outside to blow it off, he gestures to the racks of weapons on the far wall, his intent clear. But hours of being under fire have made them understandably defeatist: they shake their heads at him, eyes wide, curling into one another in a kind of ritualistic huddle, council members and commoners alike. The young one is at the center, and she starts a kind of oddly pitched humming that Lance at first thinks is a whimper. He soon realizes, when the others quietly join in, that's it some kind of hymn or prayer. It's beautiful and painfully sad, and it finally hits Lance that he's going to die here.

But he's a paladin of Voltron, and he's not going to go out with a whimper.

He moves so that he's adjacent to the large, creaking door, it's frame starting to splinter and crack under the foreign weight being thrown against it from the opposite side. He pulls a small, fat cylinder from his pocket, something he's had stowed all these hours for when he got in a pinch. The design is alien, of course, but the great and terrible thing about death is that it's practical design is fairly consistent throughout the galaxy.

He hopes that the Xolutans will have the courage to make a break for it in the chaos of the explosion, but the odds aren't good.

Lance knows his last strategy is one made out of spite. "Cutting off your nose to spite your face," his mother would say. She'll be pissed when she finds out Lance broke his promise to not get blown-up on some alien planet.

But not as pissed as Keith will be.

"I'm sorry," Lance chokes out, the first words he's spoken aloud in nearly a day. His voice sounds raw and abused from the dust. "I should have told you."

They've been together for years but have always danced around the word "love." It's not that they haven't achieved the optimum level of domestic, gag-inducing (according to Pidge) comfort and familiarity necessary for such a sentiment. They have. It's just that they're both the type to be quick to sex, slow to vulnerability. Glacial, Lance realizes in hindsight.

The pounding stops, and Lance takes the cylinder's pin between his teeth, ready to tip his back and make that last bad decision. It's poetic really. At least he might take a few drug-lords or traffickers out when he goes.

The next sounds nearly stop his heart.

"Lance? Lance!" His eyes get big as saucers at the familiar voice, incendiary device dropping to his feet and rolling away, pin still intact.

"Keith?" he shouts back through the door shakily. "I'm here!"

"Thank fucking God! Hold on!" There's shuffling and curses on the other side, and Lance slides down the wall into a crouch, a chuckle bubbling somewhere in his chest. _This is what true relief feels like,_ he realizes. _I've still got time_.

When the other four paladins finally burst through the entryway, Lance thinks he's never been more inspired by their cause than in this moment, and he understands how it must feel for all the people they've saved over the years. A last light in the darkness, the first and final defense, and all that jazz. Lance used to tease Shiro for that line of thinking, but he gets it now.

Shiro takes point, scoping the room for its weaknesses and standing like a great, sturdy sentinel. Keith says, "I've got him," him being Lance, and Pidge and Hunk nod and begin rounding up survivors.

There are suddenly strong, gauntlet-ed hands wrapped around Lance's biceps, shaking him gently. "You idiot!" Keith says, pressing his forehead to Lance's. There's a pained twist to his mouth that means Lance must've scared him. "You fucking idiot. I can't let you go anywhere. Are you hurt?"

Lance responds by cupping the back of Keith's head and pulling their mouths together. The kiss is painful and hard and probably tastes like dust, but Lance is trying to make up for all the time he nearly lost and Keith returns it just as fervently. The grit and potential danger of the situation is lost is the cool, wet interior of Keith's mouth.

"Hey guys?" Pidge says somewhere to their left. "Evacuate now, make-out later."

As they break the kiss, Lance finally lets the semi-hysterical chuckle bubble out of his chest. Because he has that time now. Maybe he's borrowing it, but it's there.

Maybe there'll even be a parade.

**Author's Note:**

> Something that was rattling away in my brain while I work on "Sweet Quiznak." It somehow got a bit angst-y. :)


End file.
